debug_getBadBlocks

debug_getBadBlocks asks a Base node to report the blocks it received but refused to accept — the ones that failed validation against the protocol rules. Base is an OP Stack optimistic rollup built by Coinbase that pays gas in ETH and settles to Ethereum L1, so its execution-layer node tracks the same kind of bad-block history any Geth-derived client does. Point the call at https://base.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY (chain ID 8453, or 0x2105 in hex) and the node returns the list of invalid blocks it has observed and rejected since it last started. Each entry pairs the rejected block's hash and decoded header with the raw RLP bytes, so you can see exactly what arrived over the wire.

Use cases

• Detect consensus violations or malformed blocks propagated by misbehaving peers on Base's p2p network — for example a block whose state root or gas accounting does not match what the node computed.
• Investigate a fork or reorg on Base by examining the rejected alternative block alongside the canonical one the sequencer produced.
• Audit a Base node's validation logic by comparing the rejected blocks it reports against the OP Stack protocol rules, confirming the client is enforcing them correctly.

Parameters

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Response

Example request

1curl https://base.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
4  -d '{
5    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
6    "method": "debug_getBadBlocks",
7    "params": [],
8    "id": 1
9  }'

Try it live in the Base playground.

Errors & troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• The bad-block history is held in memory only, so it resets to empty every time the Base node restarts — you are seeing rejections only since the current uptime began.
• A healthy Base node following the sequencer almost never accumulates bad blocks, so an empty array is the normal, expected response rather than a sign of failure.
• Not every EVM client implements this method; if the node fronting https://base.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY returns method-not-found, the debug namespace or this specific call is unavailable on that backend.

Supported networks

• Mainnet — Chain ID: 8453
• Sepolia — Chain ID: 84532

See also

• debug_traceBlock
• debug_traceBlockByHash
• debug_traceBlockByNumber

1curl https://base.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
4  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"debug_getBadBlocks","params":[]}'